It’s not everyday that the art director of a magazine gets to take flight across the country and hop on a factory bike that is ready and waiting with full support to race a national Enduro. No, I’m usually sitting in my office adjacent to the sea of cubicles going through thousands of photos and bugging the editors to get their get their stories in so I can lay it out for the magazine. However, the opportunity arose this weekend when editor Jimmy Lewis decided to take off to lay around in the river somewhere in Utah and fill his face full of Pabst Blue Ribbon and stripper dogs (hot dogs wrapped in bacon). This left second-in-command Chris Denison and the rest of the crew shackled to the office and in charge of the next issue getting out the door. So Denison’s first task was to hand off a story that he had already lined up, so he came to me and asked if wanted to race Nick Fahringer’s Husaberg FE 300 at the Muddobbers National Enduro. “Heck yeah!” was my reaction with no questions asked, it just took a little convincing the publisher it will be worth it and also telling my wife that the magazine really needed me to do this.Now, I am no Taddy Blazusiak when it comes to riding motorcycles but I am fairly decent rider through the midwest trees-when, that is, I get enough seat time in to keep myself in a non-pear shape. I am more like the average rider that gets to go out maybe once a week if I am lucky, mainly due to the lack of funds or the weeds in the yard that have taken over control of the house.So in thinking about an angle for the story I thought it would be cool to do this test through our eyes, as the average rider on a factory bike. I chose this for two reasons: First, I think it will apply to more people and second, I can blame it on you for not asking the right questions! So consider yourself me, jumping on this bike at a race where you’re elbow to elbow with the rest of the factory riders with only about two hours of practice on the bike. Tell me what questions would be running through your head? Can this bike go better than stock? Or is it too much for the average rider?Go to our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/dirtridermag), look for the Husaberg TE 300 race test post and send me your questions with your name, city and state and I will do my best to answer them. Wish me luck!
